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The biggest heat pumps

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Re: The biggest heat pumps

#121

Post by OptionOfT »

cnewey wrote: post #88
hexbin010 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto UK. Gas is relatively cheap, and a replacement boiler is £1,500 to £3,000 and will last ~10 years and there'll be no doubt about whether it can sufficiently heat the home or produce enough hot water etc . Lucky you living in Spain though lol

I was recently in a situation where I had to replace my oil-fired heating system’s oil tank (it wasn’t double skinned and no longer safe). It was £2500 to replace the oil tank, or I could opt for £2250 to install a heat pump with the government grant. This included all plumbing, electrical work, installation, and 6 new radiators all over my house. Honestly to me it seemed like a no-brainer. It’s a tad more expensive…

Did you add extra insulation to your house (or was it already more modern?).

Otherwise the heatpump just can't catch up.

And currently I have the opposite problem. The house is too well insulated for the heater (or the heater is too powerful). The heater only runs for a couple of minutes and huts off.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#122

Post by OptionOfT »

wkat4242 wrote: post #39
hexbin010 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ditto UK. Gas is relatively cheap, and a replacement boiler is £1,500 to £3,000 and will last ~10 years and there'll be no doubt about whether it can sufficiently heat the home or produce enough hot water etc . Lucky you living in Spain though lol

Yes, it's just a lot of money for a lot of people. Norway is really a different kind of rich compared to the rest of europe, they have tons of oil rights all over the world (and as such they still contribute a lot to global warming even though they have a lot of money for 'green' tech at home). PS yeah Spain is good for heating but not for AC though (which I don't have, sadly). But I do enjoy life here a lot more eve…

As someone who moved from Belgium to Phoenix, I agree. I prefer how dry heat over cold, windy & humid.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#123

Post by dzhiurgis »

I keep wondering if instead of moving water they could use "solid state" heat pipes instead. Especially for geothermal where you could just drive them into ground, no need to actually drill or circulate water.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#124

Post by dzhiurgis »

jack_tripper wrote: post #24
willvarfar wrote: post #14

In the nordics we love heat-pumps! Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps, and 90% of apartment buildings are heated by district heating and that is often generated by huge heatpumps. Apparently 95% of new heating installations in Swedish houses are heat-pumps these days: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC1... Heatpumps have been heating nordic homes for decades. Even in the co…

Sign of a rich and very developed country. A lot of buildings in Austrian cities are still heated by burning oil or wood and the whole city smells like a bonfire. Probably gonna have my lifespan shortened by at least a decade from all that fossil fuel pollution, but at least we banned that dirty nuclear from killing us.

Get an ERV - it will most likely have air filter. Such a life improvement to a point I'm actually waiting for winter now (in summer you have a problem of mosquitoes, house doesn't cool quickly enough by itself and if you close shades for sleeping - you don't get adequate ventilation).

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#125

Post by Scoundreller »

pm215 wrote: post #72
supersparrow wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve lived in the UK for 35 years and lived in various properties built in every decade from 70s-10s. Some much older and less loved ones did have single pane windows but have never seen plumbing on the outside. Maybe on much older houses? Certainly not on anything remotely new. A lot of new builds here have solar, heat pumps and insulation has been excellent for at least 20 years.

You do relatively commonly see wastewater piping on the outside of a house in the UK, especially older stock (soil stack from the toilet, waste pipe from sink or bath running into it). This is fine in the UK climate where a normally empty pipe doesn't need insulation. I hear that it won't work in places that get extreme low winter temperatures, but the UK doesn't have winters that cold. You don't see them on new buil…

Yeah it makes sense for buildings where plumbing was retrofitted.

Otherwise people try to retrofit narrow drain pipes in the walls which are prone to clogging or give you poor flushing performance. Or outside big enough pipes outside interior walls where you get to hear every flush/shower unless you build a box around that. Easier to just run it outside if you can configure your bathrooms that way.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#126

Post by Scoundreller »

ssl-3 wrote: post #119
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> air-to-water heat pumps these are slightly odd, however: they either need an external air intake set up, or they require that the water (tank/heater) be located in a space that you don't mind being cooled down (often quite significantly) AND that isn't thermally connected to the space you're heating via other means. still great technology, but deployment can be a little more challenging that space heating/cooling.

They are weird in the way that their utility varies. IIRC Dave Jones of EEVBlog fame has shown a air-to-water heat exchanger that he has at his home. It's outside. And the climate in Sydney is generally warm(ish), so it makes perfect sense there. I can also see them being useful in parts of the American South where big garages being common and the weather gets hot: Take some of the heat from the garage and convert it…

> I can also see them being useful in parts of the American South where big garages being common and the weather gets hot: Take some of the heat from the garage and convert it into hot water for showering and cleaning. Win-win.

Uhhh, better to put the unit inside the home where it provides a bit of a/c. Double win if you cool the compressor with incoming water.

Not in the south myself, but with trad water heaters, I find it dumb that I’m heating incoming 5-10C municipal water in summer time when I could have a tempering tank/loop letting the interior air warm it up (and getting a tad of “free” AC) to 20-25C first before paying to apply heat to it. Would improve “capacity” of the heater too.

Even in winter time, my home heating is more efficient than most water heaters (even if they’re both gas, water heaters are typically non-condensing, and actively pump out warmed interior air for combustion), so it makes sense all year round.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#127

Post by Scoundreller »

vintermann wrote: post #100
Retric wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

40k for heat pumps is wildly overkill here if that’s what you where quoted someone is trying to scam you. More critically, those prices aren’t set in stone over the next 30 years. Home PV for example is way less than 0,3€/kWh and rather dramatically changes these comparisons.

If we only could get China to do for heat pumps what they did for solar panels...

I’m filling my garage with cheap heat pumps and solar panels.

Going to sell for 10x when the water wars commence.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#128

Post by Scoundreller »

jgalt212 wrote: post #87
willvarfar wrote: post #14

In the nordics we love heat-pumps! Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps, and 90% of apartment buildings are heated by district heating and that is often generated by huge heatpumps. Apparently 95% of new heating installations in Swedish houses are heat-pumps these days: https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC1... Heatpumps have been heating nordic homes for decades. Even in the co…

> Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps To me, living in US Northeast, this is astounding. I've read heat pumps lose efficacy below 25F. My family would never forgive me if I made our house cold. But then I see 70% of the Nordics's house are "warm enough", or dealing colder than room temperature houses. I've asked half-dozen contractors and HVAC people in my area, and none of them have recommended a h…

Don’t let the 15 degree+ differences in latitudes fool you, a lot of the Nordic population lives near the sea, so low altitude and plenty of sea current temperature moderation.

January temps in Oslo aren’t much different than Boston. Absolute record low temps are similar too.

Coldest temp ever in Oslo is -30C in the 1800s.

Coldest in Boston was -28C in 1934.

Still doesn’t explain the poor adoption in USA but helps explain why they still work so far up north. The nordics can be relatively balmy to Wisconsin or upstate New York.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#129

Post by wolvesechoes »

wkat4242 wrote: post #29
jack_tripper wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sign of a rich and very developed country. A lot of buildings in Austrian cities are still heated by burning oil or wood and the whole city smells like a bonfire. Probably gonna have my lifespan shortened by at least a decade from all that fossil fuel pollution, but at least we banned that dirty nuclear from killing us.

Yes heat pumps are expensive and you need different radiators and more insulation than with traditional gas central heating. That's why it's an issue in Holland too. Not many people have the investment for all that. It's mainly worth it when you have solar panels but that requires another big investment. I'm lucky to live in Spain where it's not that cold so I just have one little plug in radiator I use a few months…

> more insulation

Nothing to do with a heat source.

Re: The biggest heat pumps

#130

Post by Scoundreller »

Phenomenit wrote: post #91
jgalt212 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something like 70% of houses are heated by heat-pumps To me, living in US Northeast, this is astounding. I've read heat pumps lose efficacy below 25F. My family would never forgive me if I made our house cold. But then I see 70% of the Nordics's house are "warm enough", or dealing colder than room temperature houses. I've asked half-dozen contractors and HVAC people in my area, and none of them have recommended a h…

You never go below 1 in efficiency. Worst case the water is heated directly with electricity.

You shouldn’t but you could.

In theory peltier elements are more efficient heaters than resistive heating but if the temp delta are big enough, you lose more heat through conduction than you pump in.

A poorly optimized fireplace may vacuum more warm air out than it radiates in.

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